


Oh, how could anyone not love the terrible things you do?

by A_Butter_Churner



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst and Feels, Bittersweet Ending, Enjolras Was A Charming Young Man Who Was Capable Of Being Terrible, Historical Inaccuracy, M/M, Pining, Pining Grantaire (Les Misérables), Post-Barricade, Sad Grantaire, Survivor Guilt, enjoltaire - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:40:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24780961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Butter_Churner/pseuds/A_Butter_Churner
Summary: Heyyy so I haven't written an Enjoltaire-centric oneshot in what seems like forever, so here's one for your enjoyment. It's based on the song 'Barricade' by Stars which gave me HUGE Enjoltaire vibes. More on that in the end notes.This is dedicated to iamwild, Get_below, xiamer, and getoffmybarricade for all of your wonderful comments. I was spiraling yesterday, and you made me feel so seen and loved. I'm proud to have such a great community here. And I hope that we've reached the status of friends. You mean so much to me, dammit.Anyway, I hope you like this fic!Enjoy!
Relationships: Enjolras & Grantaire (Les Misérables), Enjolras/Grantaire (Les Misérables)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 10





	Oh, how could anyone not love the terrible things you do?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jol_llly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jol_llly/gifts), [Get_below_my_line_of_vision](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Get_below_my_line_of_vision/gifts), [xiamer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/xiamer/gifts), [getoffmybarricade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/getoffmybarricade/gifts).



> Heyyy so I haven't written an Enjoltaire-centric oneshot in what seems like forever, so here's one for your enjoyment. It's based on the song 'Barricade' by Stars which gave me HUGE Enjoltaire vibes. More on that in the end notes.
> 
> This is dedicated to iamwild, Get_below, xiamer, and getoffmybarricade for all of your wonderful comments. I was spiraling yesterday, and you made me feel so seen and loved. I'm proud to have such a great community here. And I hope that we've reached the status of friends. You mean so much to me, dammit.
> 
> Anyway, I hope you like this fic!
> 
> Enjoy!

_Trapped on the terraces, I looked at you and knew. You were the only thing that mattered, there was no one for me but you._

Grantaire drifts in a limbo-like state. A bubble of ether and wine encases his person like an impermeable sticky, too-sweet bubble. The constant numbness easily distracts him from the night of June 5th. Or at least, it tries.

Grantaire doesn’t think he’d ever forget it.

He doesn’t think he’ll ever not bolt up in bed in a cold sweat, a silent scream dying in his throat. Visions dancing like demons in his mind: Gavroche, not yet fourteen, climbing the barricade and shot twice in the arm and chest without mercy, left to bleed out on the street; Eponine collapsing in the arms of her beloved, someone who could never love her back; Combeferre, only given the chance to glance skyward before releasing his final breath; Joly and Bossuet shot at the foot of the barricade.

No, he won’t ever forget.

And it makes him think, why him? Why, if there is a God, did God look down upon him and deem him worthy of living? Why not Courfeyrac, who never had a bad word to say about anyone, who filled their lives with color and mirth? Why not Jehan, who looked upon the world as if it was a brothel of beauty?

Why him, the cynic who never had a single belief in his life, who only came to the Musain to drink and mock the ideals of his friends? Why was he allowed to live?

Although, he muses, dying would have been far more pleasant than the hell he’s forced to endure with each rise and fall of the sun.

Because every day, he looks out through his window, the glass being his portal to the world outside, and stares at the man he’d once called Apollo.

_In Harmony’s Street we’d beat a man, just for standing there. I held my breath as I watched you swing, then run your fingers through your hair._

Enjolras had clasped his hand on the day that the barricade fell. He’d pulled Grantaire aside somehow through all the chaos and placed a small kiss to his temple. His cherry blossom lips were blood-speckled, and his cerulean eyes were aflame with passion. It was clear that he thought he was going to die.

But he didn’t.

_They_ didn’t.

And Grantaire never got the courage to ask him what that kiss really meant, because it felt like a promise. But if it was a promise, that promise was broken. And the moment had slipped away anyway, because Enjolras clearly wanted nothing to do with him.

Grantaire knows the man he loved notices him staring. But he never makes a motion to wave, never offers a smile, never walks the few meters that separate their two homes to say hello, or even just to sit in silence knowing that they still had one another.

_Oh, how could anyone not love the terrible things you do? Oh, how could anyone not want to try and help you?_

It hurts Grantaire sometimes, to watch his Apollo from the window. To see the golden curls that once made Grantaire’s fingers _itch_ to sift through, now losing their luster. To see the porcelain of his Apollo’s face cracked and forlorn. To see those piercing blue eyes lose their electricity, to be replaced with a watery cobalt.

All the cynic wants to do is reach out through the glass, to make the first move for once, to caress his Apollo’s cheek and tell him that it isn’t his fault. That these things happen. That there was still hope for a new day in France.

But he can’t say those things if he doesn’t believe them himself. And the man he loves already seems too lost, too damaged. Almost as though he’d break if touched.

_You held me at the barricade. The pigs arrived with tear gas, and I wept at the mistakes we made._

Today though, Enjolras isn’t there. It’s almost as if there’s an Apollo-shaped hole where he should be. Something in Grantaire stirs as he finds himself walking, pulled along by an invisible thread. As if in a trance, he ends up at the site of where the barricade once stood.

“The blood’s still there.”

Grantaire whips around to face the voice, already knowing who it belongs to before even moving.

Enjolras doesn’t turn to him. Doesn’t even acknowledge Grantaire’s presence. Now that he’s lost it, the cynic realized what a _junkie_ he is for his Apollo’s attention.

“Enjolras,” he breathes hesitantly, wanting an answer. _Needing_ an answer.

“We killed them, R.” his Apollo spits suddenly, looking up at Grantaire for the first time in weeks. His face is broken, utterly shattered. “You were right.”

Grantaire silently curses himself. “No, Apollo-”

_“Don’t_ call me that.” R can hear the tears in his voice.

_“Enjolras,”_ Grantaire concedes. “You made it. You’re still alive. You can show the people that the lives of our friends weren’t meaningless. You can’t silence yourself now.”

Enjolras laughs darkly, a sound that sends shivers down R’s spine. “Do you hear yourself, Grantaire? Do you _fucking_ hear yourself? It’s over. I killed them. There’s nothing I can do.”

Grantaire furrows his brow. This is not how things were supposed to be. It’s supposed to be the other way around. Enjolras was his beacon of light, his only belief! What cruel irony that it was Pylades on his knees, begging for his Orestes to reclaim his light.

“You cannot possibly believe that. What of Combeferre and Courfeyrac who stood by you through _thick and thin_? Would they not want you to preserve their names and their legacies? Would they not want you to continue the fight? Would they-”

“They would have wanted to _live!_ ” Enjolras cries, cutting Grantaire off. The blonde collapses against the cobblestone, shaking with every sob. Grantaire simply stood there, nothing left to say.

He soon left with tears in his own eyes.

He now had nothing left to believe in.

_I found you on a Saturday, and that was where I lost you. You had to finally walk away, because of what it cost you._

**_~Epilogue~_ **

****

“Good evening, Mme. Brodeur! Here is the final product, I hope it’s to your liking.” The blonde haired man hears as he approaches the shop.

He’s spent quite a few year searching all over France for this particular shop, knowing full well the remarkable quality of the paintings sold there, they’re famous throughout the country.

Although he’s not there for the art. He’s there for the artist.

An elderly woman shuffles past him on her way out the door, allowing the man to walk inside. There are paintings of all sizes and hues, the entire room is an explosion of color. A smile instantly comes to the blonde’s face.

Suddenly, the smile grows wider as his eyes fall upon a dark, curly-haired man at an easel applying the finishing touches to a painting.

“Bonjour,” he says gently.

The other man immediately covers the easel while saying, “Ah yes. Bonjour! What can I do for-“

They lock eyes.

“You.” The artist finishes breathily.

“Me.” The blonde agrees.

_Years later on, I saw your face, in line to catch the morning train. You looked like you’d been softened like you never really loved the pain._

“What are you doing here?” the artist stammers, running fingers through his hair.

The blonde smiles sadly. “I came to see you.”

The dark-haired man stares at him. “It’s a little too late for that.”

“I know, I know.” He pauses. “I’m sorry for everything. I… I took what you said to heart and… and I’m doing what I can in Paris. The right way this time.”

The artist nods. “No more barricades?”

A chuckle. “No more barricades.”

“Good.” The other man pauses. “Can I show you something?”

The blonde nods.

The artist gestures to the corner of a painting above his head. There’s a little square there that almost looks like a flag. A _red_ flag.

“What?” the blonde breathes.

The dark-haired man grins. “You know how every artist has a signature? That’s mine. I thought of you whenever I created something new. Because you inspired me with everything you did.”

The blonde smiles softly. “And I let you down.”

The artist nods grimly. “You did. But, for what it’s worth, I’m glad we got to see one another again.”

The blonde stiffens. “Do you think I’m going to leave? I don’t want to _leave,_ I love…” he trails off.

The artist chuckles sadly. “We have our own lives now. If you loved me, you should have let me know a long time ago.”

The blonde nods, understanding. It stings, but he understands. “Okay. Well, I’ll leave you to it. Just, can I ask a favor?”

“Yeah?”

“Meet me at the barricade?”

The artist grins again. “The love died, but the hate can’t fade.”

“Goodbye, Grantaire.”

“Goodbye, Enjolras.”

_I’ll be at the barricade_

_The love died… but the hate can’t fade._

**Author's Note:**

> Whoops, that was angsty. I'll leave the ending to the imagination. Your choice whether things work out for them or not. Also, I intentionally didn't mention their names in the epiliogue. That was a choice hehe.
> 
> Okay now it's time to dish about the song.
> 
> Listening to 'Barricade', I felt that I was hearing R's internal monologue during the entirety of the song. I was completely positive that it was a song actually based off of Enjoltaire (COUGH, GBlags' cover of I Will Follow You Into the Dark, COUGH), but no. It's not. It's about 'soccer hooligans' which I had to look up so.... yeah.
> 
> I suggest you give it a listen before or after reading this fic, it's a good song in its own right but it just screams Enjoltaire.
> 
> Another song that screams Enjoltaire to me is Teeth by 5SOS? Is that just me or? Idk man, but I really need a e/R Teeth fic. Please. Somebody.
> 
> Oh! I also have an Enjoltaire playlist on Spotify. I'll drop it if anybody's interested. These are some long notes. Wow. Thanks for reading! See y'all later.


End file.
